Plans for a block of 62 flats in Shoreham have been approved by Adur District Council.
The council’s planning committee approved the plans for New Wharf, Shoreham, off Brighton Road, at a meeting on Monday, December 4, despite concerns the development would include no affordable housing.
The block is to be a mixed-use development, with mostly one to two-bed flats over eight storeys. There will be a 74-space underground car park and ground-floor commercial space. The project will involve the demolition of an existing warehouse on the site.
The flats will neighbour the 587-home Free Wharf development as part of the council’s broader 1,100-home Western Harbour Arm Regeneration project.
No affordable housing will be provided, as the applicants said it would run the profit margin into a deficit, making the whole development unviable – with plans showing a £128,455 affordable housing contribution paid to the council through a section 106 agreement instead.
Council officers said the Free Wharf development would be nearly 70 per cent affordable housing, due to many of the developers there being registered providers with the Regulator for Social Housing and Adur District Council.
Councillor Gabe Crisp (Green, St Nicholas) said despite ‘a lot of good things’ in the proposal the lack of social or affordable housing was a concern. She said:
“Why have they got three times as much car parking as [Free Wharf], and why in that case can we have no social housing? I’m sure it would be more than 1,000 households on our social housing waiting list at the moment and yet we’re not delivering anything for those people.”
Officers said the registered providers thought when providing high numbers of affordable housing they could justify less parking and so Free Wharf had fewer parking spaces than this development.
Requests from the county council will see a total of £933,000 paid by the developer to the county and district councils through the section 106, with around £150,000 going towards new schools and fire and rescue.
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